Spring Cleaning

Though the official start of Spring is a few days away, spring and summer-like temperatures have invaded our days.  The front door is wide open and the windows are mostly clean.  A little more Windex wouldn't hurt.  It's also the first day of another spring cleaning- detoxing from diet soda.  Research reveals that I'm not the only addict!  I've found a few tips out on the world wide web (http://www.livestrong.com/article/230229-how-to-detox-from-diet-coke) that others have followed... plus some of my own.

1.  Eliminate alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, refined sugars, saturated fats and artificial sweeteners. 
--Most of these I have left behind or never used- except for the 'refined sugars'.  How does one bake without sugar?  Hmmmm.  That one will mostly likely have to stay and be used in moderation.

2.  Use healthy sweeteners--raw (unpasteurized) honey, organic maple syrup, or stevia to sweeten your food, and use these in moderation to avoid a spike in blood sugar.
--This I can do.  Maybe I can bake with these substitutions.

3.  Eat plenty of fiber from brown rice and  fresh fruits and vegetables. Beets, radishes, artichokes, cabbage, broccoli, and seaweed are excellent detoxifying foods. Also supplement with vitamin C.
--Fruits I can do but where do I find seaweed in the heartland of the country?

4.  Drink lemon water daily.  It enhances liver function and provides the antioxidant vitamin C. Also, drink adequate amounts of water to help restore pH balance. Sip half your body weight in ounces of water each day. 
--The lemon water has been incorporated but drinking half my body weight in ounces of water-not so much.  Right now- that's a lot of water!

5.  Just don't buy it.
--For the past few weeks I had only been drinking soda fountain drinks.  I bought a case of it the last trip to the store which put me back on the path of imbibing too much.  Knowing I was starting this process today I bypassed it yesterday at Sam's.  My mom even noticed it by mentioning that I never not buy Diet Coke at the store.  That's pretty bad.

6.  Change of routine.
--This is major for me.  In the past when I drove the girls to school in the morning I would stop at the gas station between drops and get 'my fix'.  I would then come home and surf the web while drinking my soda. Now that the girls are peddling their way to school I stay home...

7.  Cost
--As with EVERYTHING else the price of a soda case keeps increasing.  I'm adding the savings to the 'frugal side of life'.  At @$6 a case, at one a week, is a savings of $312- and if I were to include fountain drinks- I'm estimating a savings of $500 a year.  Holy crap!

8.  Drug Therapy
--In no way could I actually do this 'cold turkey'.  The plan (so far) is to ingest caffeine in the form of a pill after eating breakfast and taking a combination of acetaminophen and ibuprofen throughout the day, eventually backing off when the blood vessels in my head are no longer constricting. 

9.  Music
--As Yoda would say, 'weird one, this is'.  A channel we are now getting for free shows music videos from the 1980's era at eight o'clock every night, which sends me nostalgically back to a time when I didn't drink soda like it was water.  I actually drank water.  That's not to say I didn't drink soda- I just didn't have it with breakfast, lunch and dinner.

10.  Body Functions
--I believe, through personal observation, that soda prohibits the body to function at its optimal prime.  I'm sure there is a plethora of research to back me on this one, but I don't need it, I know it.  With the onset of aging I need all those body parts to function as prescribed.